What are the ten best magazines in America right now?
Three on the list pretty much center on one city ... fortunately, it's New York City - and they deliver & capture in print America's zeitgeist in one fell swoop EVERY WEEK*
Of course, being a magazine about New York has its advantage because even after 230 years, there's no denying that New York is the center of it all because if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere (as the colonial forefathers used to say over & over again (of course, they used YE instead of YOU)) - and if nothing else, ye still cannot get a
pastrami sandwich as
great as you can in NYC.
By jamming everything together in one 50 block radius, there is tension and competitiveness to be first, best or have the most ad pages - it also helps that the TV networks, art, theater, fashion, advertising, publishing and other entertainment industries are all there in that same 50 blocks.
So, there are some built in advantages but that doesn't entirely explain the distance between the quality of these three NY magazines and Los Angeles or San Francisco city mags - they are not just a continent apart in quality - more like the west coast mags are on Pluto in the middle of the
Kuiper belt ... that's 5,913,520,000 miles if you're keeping numeric track ... and it's no East Coast bias talking here, I'm in S.F.
NEW YORK MAGAZINE held that "mythical" title of America's best magazine for most of the 70's and early 1980's and has pretty much re-captured that crown though it's not nearly as great as it once was but that might just because in the era of the internet, NYC is just a tad less important. While a little less newsy obviously, it is what TIME and NEWSWEEK hope to be - it's never un-substantial even when it's covering pop culture or when they have a celeb on the cover. Every week, they capture the topic most important to New Yorkers and ultimately to everyone vaguely interested in all the directions New York and its many industry leaders are pointed towards. And if that's too much reading for you, they even have included a brilliant weekly "
approval matrix" graph paper grid dividing the trends of today into HIGHBROW & LOWBROW and then split into varying X/Y axis points of DESPICABLE or BRILLIANT ... (and promptly stolen by STUFF magazine).
Every issue is backed with solid writing, excellent photographs and world class magazine design. Of course, it's New York centric with occasional features that leave those who cannot name the 5 burroughs clueless but then TIME magazine keeps telling me to exercise and eat healthy so what's up with that? And since it's also an insider media mag - you also get a glimpse at new print campaigns. For the longest time, it was home to the annual ABSOLUT over-the-top holiday print extravaganza from a flat 3-D snowglobe with moving snowflakes to socks to word magnets.
The downside to many is that the last half of the magazine is essentially a roundup of movie and theater reviews (plus classifieds) - the weakest part of the magazine.
All and all,
NEW YORK MAGAZINE is the ultimately Manhatten insider - perhaps spending a little too much at club openings, parties and in the Hamptons but secretly, we want all the gossip anyway but it's no lightweight celeb magazine as it covers everything about NYC and everything that the city touches - architecture, art, advertising, media, the economy, fashion, government, and where America is headed.
Hard to ask for much more from a magazine.
If NEW YORK MAGAZINE is a bit East Side,
TIME OUT NEW YORK is ALL Village ... It is the charismatic wild cousin of New York Magazine who calls you up at 5 AM because he's locked in the freezer of the meat packing plant that was a nightclub from 2 to 4 AM. Time Out New York covers the rest of NYC that NY Mag might shy away from - its seedy and wild side. The writing is more uneven but it's always heartfelt and real - and yes, while it's more a city guide in terms of its focus on events, happenings and resturants - because it's NYC, it's always just a bit more important. They are also quick to poke fun at anything pretentious - and in NYC, that ahppens pretty often. While New York mags agate type reviews and back pages stuff & classifieds don't amount to much, TONY's (as they abbreviate themselves) strength is its hundreds if not thousands of reviews of EVERYTHING going on in NYC. While 75% of the mag is the "back-pages' stuff and at first glance, might be a turnoff, it's really a fascinating snapshot of the city that never sleeps and ultimately a snapshot of the city that truely is America's capitol (and capital).
A typical issue has a cover story on this week's big happening along with some other major event - then it's onto the fine print - several restaurant reviews and any new restuarnt openings along with their listing of the Top 100 places in the city. Then it's onto the weekly happenings for kids, museums, festivals and even street closures. Every issue contains a review of an art exhibit and in NYC, there are usually 4-5 opening at all times ... Other subtopics include Books, Clubs, Comedy, Films, Gay & Lesbian, Music Live, Music CD Reviews, Theater, On & Off Broadway, Radio & DVD ... and we're not just talking one page per topic or regurgitated press releases, there is a main page and then anywhere from 2-5 new reviews plus hundreds of real reviews - whether it's abstract photographs at some tiny gallery or the latest Pixar movie or some night club cabaret singer ... IT'S ALL THERE and ALL REVIEWED.
It is really a weekly moveable feast Michelin Guide to all that is NYC.
So even if you're NOT in NYC, you can see what you're missing at the Met or at the Met's Shea stadium - it's all there. Idiosyncrastic, Weird and Fun - it's the real New York City and if nothing else, an impressive feat of print production because they do it again EVERY WEEK.*
When you flip through it, you wish your town had as much going on in 200 square blocks ...
The third is the oldest - the venerable
NEW YORKER. Of course when your writers included Hemingway, Faulkner, Capote and Benchley - you have just a little bit of history to bank on. Of course, it just proves that great writers no longer start at magazines - who do we get now?
I can't speak of its years in the days of Hemingway since I was not alive. I can only praise it from the 1980's to today. While Tina Brown seemed to be loathed by many - since I've never met her, I can only say she did a great job when she was at the New Yorker. She had a pulse of what topics would be relevant to our lives and to our intellectual curiousity - when she was at the helm in the late 1980's and 1990's, the New Yorker held the crown of best magazine in America. The new editor has done a pretty good job of upholding the fine tradition and it's still pretty great - just not the absolute best in America. Here is the strength of the New Yorker, (no cover lines BTW) ... WRITING. Yea, pretty radical. The comics are amusing and the newly added photos are nice but it flat out comes down to the writing. In fact, there's no point in the New Yorker printing cover lines on the cover because frankly, most issues don't seem to promise much ... if you glance at the TOC, you think - READ THAT, SEEN THAT, BEEN THERE, THROWN UP ON THAT ... but then you flip the page and the writing draws you in - topics you thought you had absolutely ZERO interest in ... Japanese Koi fish, WTF? but 8,000 words later - you suddenly start googling Japanese Koi fish to read more ... Even the book reviews draw you ins o 4 pages later, you are at
Amazon looking up the autobiography of the general leading the British at the Somme - damn you New Yorker!
It is still weird reading the f-bomb in the New Yorker though and their idea of humor is quaint - as if Moliere told you a pun in French.
Part of the appeal of the
New Yorker is how it seems as though they are in a bunker in the basement of the Museum of Natural History - writing as if everything else were a mere triffling but they are the only real scribes of our history and times ... that can be annoying to some but mostly, it's interesting, different and great writing is timeless. Bravo to Conde Nast keeping its spirit intact ...
So, there you go, read and subcribe to the three of America's best magazines. Thank you NYC!
* Well, in magazine publishing, there are really only 46-51 weeks a year :-)
Direct Web Links:
NEW YORKTIME OUT NEW YORK
THE NEW YORKER
